This Medium post from Motive Unknown’s Darren Hemmings is getting a lot of attention, and rightly so:
We are constantly being told by the likes of Spotify that they can enhance our music discovery. Algorithms and their own curated playlists should give us no end of music to enjoy. But the sheer volume, coupled with zero friction, results in the much-cited “paradox of choice”. Selecting anything is horribly hard, but equally, with zero friction in accessing it, no emotional investment is made and our own consumption becomes entirely shallow. […]
At every step of the way, streaming services are essentially gaslighting us that this ecosystem is an amazing new development. Just like Silicon Valley in general, there is this mindset that having everything available all the time is a good thing. It isn’t — and it is arguably damaging art and culture as a result. […]
In 2019, artists need meaningful patronage, not a speech about how they could get more streams. That patronage might come from merch or other means, but it should come from music too. As someone who makes his living from the music industry, it also occurred to me that frankly, I owe these people. Without them, I wouldn’t have this job that I love.
The author continues with an opinion that streaming is more of a replacement for radio — rather than for albums or fan-cherished media — than we realize. Like radio, most listeners approach streamed music passively and ephemerally — a song or artist listened to now is forgotten fifteen minutes later. Hemmings feels this is partly due to a lack of listener investment (the purchase of the music) as well as the psychological effect of a seemingly endless amount of content.
I still think that music fans can utilize streaming with intention, but it’s not effortless. Rather than clicking on playlists and random recommendations, listeners can seek out albums and new releases from trusted sources (reviews, online radio shows, friends). And once a great album is discovered, learning more about it and its artist is just a few clicks away. That said, requiring intention won’t easily convert casual listeners to die-hard fans, but the seductive nature of playlists and algorithmic recommendations is turning fans into more passive listeners. Intention used to be inherent in the medium. Gone are the days of merely perusing the CD or LP liner notes (or holding a curiosity-inspiring album cover) and digging further.
The comparison with radio may predict another inevitability: that streaming platforms will become more exclusive rather than aiming to contain every available musical recording. Just as you know to turn to a top 40 radio station to hear that format, or a jazz FM station for be-bop, or the local college station for freeform, esoteric selections, we may see a similar separation in streaming outlets. I believe this could be a good thing, and we’re seeing seeds in the Bandcamp model — that platform isn’t actively courting the new Taylor Swift single.
The ultimate model is for artists to create portals for music through their sites like Neil Young has done with his Archives project. If a fan wanted to hear the music first and in the best quality or format then the artist’s site could be the destination rather than that of a corporate third party. This also gives the artist freedom over presentation, to have ‘liner notes,’ videos, behind-the-scenes documentaries, and such featured alongside the music. The emphasis would be on fan-building as opposed to platform-building. One step further is for artists to be connected and networked, perhaps via an organization like Merlin, so music from similar bands are discovered through the artist’s portal.
There are still many possible directions for the future of the streaming industry. I know it feels like we’re at the end-point, that Spotify and Apple’s dominance and agenda-setting are the way things are and will be. But, as we’re learning with society’s now mainstream skepticism of social media, we’re still at the ‘figuring-it-all-out’ stage with digital media. Expect more than a few forks and unexpected crossroads along the way. And if an independent artist’s future is outside of Spotify — just as independents were rarely included on MTV or commercial radio — then it’s likely that artist will end up stronger for it.
Notice How TV Music Is Getting a Lot Cooler?
In a recent piece, Noisey explores the rise of independent artists working on scores for television programs, such as Julia Holter‘s work on the UK Channel 4 show Pure. Music supervisor Jen Moss explains how the scoring landscape is now a bit more adventurous:
“Things like cable channels and streaming platforms are allowing for slightly more leftfield storytelling and non-traditional narratives and voices,” she explains. “The creatives behind them want to to extend that experimentation into the music as well. So what we’re getting now is a move away from all the orchestral traditional scores you used to tend to get, into soundscapes that are as artful and unique as the visuals they’re accompanying.”
I imagine another factor is that so much content is created now, with even more on the way as new streaming networks from the likes of Disney and Apple appear on the horizon. With all these shows, studios are going to unexpected (and lower budgeted) places to fill composer shoes.
But the odd tone of the article stood out to me:
The trend of indie artists scoring films is finally trickling down to TV. But while on the surface it might appear like a winning arrangement for both artists, TV creators and small screen bingers alike, underneath it reveals a darker truth about how indie musicians are increasingly being forced to diversify in a time of crushingly low streaming platform royalties railroading acts into exhausting cycles of touring.
Weird. Even before streaming, indie musicians would jump at the chance to score for TV. And I don’t think I’ve ever discussed goals with a songwriter or producer without ‘scoring a film or TV show’ coming up. Yes, diversification is essential for musicians in 2019 and non-stop touring sucks. But artists given opportunities to work on television is often considered a golden opportunity, despite streaming’s impact.
🔗→ TV’s ‘Golden Age’ Has an Extra Meaning for Indie Musicians
Buzzangle Music’s 2018 U.S. Music Industry Report has tongues wagging this week as there’s a lot of information to analyze and digest. Everyone agrees it shows a music industry in transition (though, when was it not in transition?) and growing
The most popular 10 percent of songs accounted for 99 percent of all audio streams. … Flip that statistic around: 90 percent of streamable music is responsible for just one percent of actual streams.
That concentration was only a smidgeon less severe at the top of the distribution in 2018, according to BuzzAngle’s latest report. The top 500,000 most popular songs in 2017 accounted for 93.6 percent of all streams. The comparable number in 2018 fell the tiniest bit, to 92.4 percent of all streams.
Music Business Report takes a rosier view of these statistics:
The interesting bit: in 2017, the USA’s Top 500,000 tracks racked up 14.6-times as many audio streams as every other piece of music. In 2018, however, this multiple had fallen significantly, down to 12.2. Despite on-demand audio streaming’s overall volume growing by 41.8% in the US in 2018, the actual number of plays dedicated to the Top 50 tracks fell harshly – down by a pretty shocking 74.6%. […]
In other words (give or take a couple of billion streams): pretty much all of the growth in the US audio streaming market last year came outside the Top 500 tracks (aka outside the weekly Top 10 chart).
I suppose that could be interpreted as great news for independent labels
And if the disparity has indeed gotten worse, then that may also be representative of other factors than the platform. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I was pleased to see Rolling Stone hit the nail on the head with this easily overlooked sentence:
… the fact remains that the rampant inequality that has become pervasive in other aspects of American life is similarly acute in the streaming-verse.
Above: another pic from the sticks, hope I don’t get ticks. I’m hiding out in this remote location for a couple more days.
I’m a fan of email newsletters — I subscribe to way too many — and one of my favorites is Cherie Hu’s Water & Music. Even outside of the newsletter Hu is one of my favorite music industry writers/pundits, and she seems to reserve her most thought-provoking opinions for the newsletter. And 2018’s final edition of Water & Music, titled ‘The Music Industry’s Inconvenient Truths,’ is a corker.
The premise revolves around answers to the question, “What is one truth about the music industry that very few people agree with you on?” I can’t say I strongly disagree with any of the responses Hu received, and this one bolsters the direction of my consulting work. But it’s Hu’s two answers to the question that elicit the most thought — this newsletter’s been reeling in my head since I read it a few days ago.
Hu’s first answer has familiarity as she’s dropping some Seth Godin knowledge and I just finished his latest book, This Is Marketing. The concept of the ‘smallest viable audience’ is emphasized, which states that an artist should only seek to please his die-hard fans. Musicianship and ‘honing the craft’ remain important, but not at the expense of serving the needs of those who support you. Says Hu:
Let’s put it this way: as long as music can be materialized as an item or activity whose purchase generates revenue for somebody, music is a product. People who buy or engage with a musical product are referred to by the industry as “fans,” so “fan” is just another word for “customer.” Customers buy the products that best satisfy their own needs and desires. So, like in any other industry, the best music products most effectively address customers’ needs and satisfy clearly-defined gaps in the market that other products haven’t filled.
In This Is Marketing, Godin argues that we are all marketers as individuals seeking to make a change in others. For the recording artist, that change is as simple (or complex) as convincing a listener to check out her album rather than someone else’s. Godin then challenges us to think of ourselves as something more than marketers — also as teachers, delivering value and reward to our customers/fans. With a teacher mindset, we’re encouraged to produce meaningful content for those who are paying the most attention.
I could go on and on about this but I’ll save it for a future post. I’m cutting myself short as I can’t wait to get to Hu’s next proclamation: “The word ‘creator’ does more harm than good:”
I understand that the word “creator” might be the simplest, most easily accessible term for addressing all possible users releasing content on a given platform. And don’t get me wrong: democratizing creativity is undeniably a force for good, and the last thing the world should do is give fewer people access to tools for making art and expressing themselves. But who owns and profits from that creativity is an entirely separate debate, in danger of being obfuscated by the widespread adoption and promotion of “creator” as a job title.
It may seem like semantics, but the way we adopt and use language rewires our thinking (hello, George). Hu’s point— which I never considered — is that the more we refer to ourselves as ‘creators,’ the easier it is to submit to the notion that our creations are in fealty to others. Notice how the services almost all use ‘creator’ — a sampling of examples Hu points out include YouTube Creators, Facebook for Creators, Spotify’s “Creator Marketing.’ So when a platform sneakily claims ownership of our work — as Spotify did with its #PraiseV campaign (see Hu’s newsletter) — we’re desensitized against protest. Hu again:
Throughout history, the democratization of creativity has coincided with a dilution of clarity around ownership […] [and] the mechanisms by which other companies can claim IP ownership in a world of democratized creation are becoming much swifter than reading through tens of pages of a record contract.
I feel like the tech platforms — Spotify, Apple, Amazon, et al. — would like us to start thinking of music as software. That is, we’ve ‘created’ something that’s inseparable from their technologies. Just as Omnifocus, my to-do app of choice, won’t run and can’t exist without my iMac, a song can’t exist without Spotify. Then we start thinking of our music as dependent on the platform when, of course, it’s the other way around.
That’s one thing I love about music publishing. Its framework forces us to think of compositions as separate from the recordings and undetachable from the songwriter. A song isn’t a creation, per se, but an idea tied to an individual (or individuals, if there are co-writers). The tech platforms have had their problems with music publishing, showing that the intimacy of composition may help protect against music becoming software. But, as Cherie Hu points out, the real battle may be fought through language and how a shift in simple phrasing affects the ownership mindset of future songwriters. Let’s hold on to our ideas and understand that songs are breathing things that exist on their own, platform be damned. Don’t let your music become software.
P.S. — I realize this last bit may seem in contradiction to the first, where it appears I’m referring to songs as product. But it’s not in opposition at all if you understand the type of marketing we’re doing as artists. Godin’s This Is Marketing will help you understand and I recommend it.
P.P.S.— There’s no disrespect intended to software and software makers. But I feel programmers have a better understanding of their IP rights in the milieu of platform-dependence than songwriters and artists do.
Here’s an enthusiastic TED Talk from Jack Conte, co-founder of Patreon and one-half of Pomplamoose:
Conte: What gets me super excited to be a creator right now, to be alive today, to be a creative person right now, is realizing that we’re only ten years into figuring out this new machine, to figuring out the next hundred years of infrastructure for our creators. And you can tell we’re only ten years in as there’s a lot of trial and error. There’s some really good ideas and there’s a lot of experimentation.We’re figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
More from The Verge on Patreon’s promise:
Patreon isn’t simply a replacement for record labels or TV networks, though. Instead it’s the ideal incubator for niche internet subcultures, where a small but dedicated group of fans can directly support work they care about. That includes traditional arts and entertainment, but also YouTube celebrities, cultural figures, or even political actions — some inspiring, some troubling. The Patreon model encourages people to see themselves not as consumers, but as members of a private club, free from the constraints of mainstream gatekeepers or mass-market appeal. And in the process, it’s blurred the lines between art, artist, and audience in an unprecedented way.
I admit two things here: I share Conte’s optimism and enthusiasm for being a creative person in this current era. I also quite like the idea of Patreon. It’s been tough for me to warm up to crowd-funders like Kickstarter and PledgeMusic as I can’t get over the perception of having to plead with one’s fans.
Then there’s the ‘breaking the fourth wall’ aspect. “Pledge $500 and the band will cook you dinner.” I know this works for some artists and fits in their M.O., but is this the future for all creators? Maybe I’m old fashioned in that I enjoy an air of mystery from the musical acts I enjoy. I’d rather not have them cook me dinner or call me on the phone in return for some cash.
On the outside, Patreon seems different. The ‘patron’ is joining the fan club and getting perks. For musicians using Patreon, these perks could be advance peeks at songs, limited merch or physical releases, and glimpses into the creative process. But there’s also the phone calls, the live chats, the guitar lessons. Again, that’s fine if this intimacy with fans comes naturally, but the worry is it becoming an expectation from those who aren’t comfortable. You know, like most artistic types.
From The Verge again:
Unlike their predecessors, internet celebrities thrive on a radical accessibility. {Musician Peter} Hollens, for example, has built his current a cappella career on subverting the rock star mystique. He’s got an easy answer for why there are so few fellow musicians topping Patreon’s charts: “Musicians are a product. We have a difficult time conveying to the audience that we’re people,” he says. “I’m a person first and a musician second, because that’s the best angle to take to succeed in the future as a musician. It’s very difficult to have that come across when you have, like, a slick produced audio and visual thing.” His music videos are complex and stylish, but he ends each one by earnestly addressing the camera, breaking the fourth wall between him and his audience.
In this system, it’s almost impossible to separate a work of art from its creator — or, at least, its creator’s public persona. Is there a future for someone who wants to be a musician, but not a personality? “No. I don’t think so,” Hollens says. “I don’t think the reclusive thing is going to happen anymore. That’s not the world we live in. Like, the Brad Pitts of the world” — distant celebrities who are loved from afar — “are losing value.”
I still think there’s room for the aloof artist. With accessibility becoming the norm I’m entertaining the idea that aloofness might now be a marketable ‘angle.’ I’d love to see a mysterious artist use and exploit Patreon, or something like it, and subvert the platform’s preference for approachability. Is there anyone out there presently attempting this?
Spotify and Apple Music could soon get the legal grey area of music like remixes and DJ sets that today live unofficially on SoundCloud. Sony Music Entertainment today became the first major record label to allow its music to be monetized through unofficial mixes thanks to a deal with rights clearance startup Dubset. That means Sony’s master recordings will be indexed by Dubset, and rights holders will be compensated even if just a tiny one-second snippet of their song is used in a DJ set or remix.
A source tells TechCrunch that Dubset is getting closer to securing deals with the other two major labels Warner and Universal.
If it can lock down all three, remixes and DJ sets featuring almost any music could be legally hosted on the top streaming services instead of being barred or removed for copyright infringement. That might eliminate the differentiation that’s kept struggling SoundCloud afloat. Illegal music uploaded there has sometimes flown under the radar since SoundCloud is protected by Safe Harbor law regarding user generated content. But if it’s legally available on Spotify, Apple Music, and elsewhere, listeners wouldn’t have to go to SoundCloud.
Could we be stepping closer to a mainstream acceptance of remix culture? A future where derivative works are not only allowed but encouraged is a divergent music future, indeed. As previously stated on this blog, if you can clear unauthorized remixes using Dubset, then why not clear samples eventually? We might be entering an era where most music is fair game for creative mutation, and the original artists get paid. How will that work with songs already released, especially the ones that sneakily didn’t clear drum loops or other samples? Should clearance lawyers start looking at new career options?
As far as Apple Music and Spotify go, I really can’t see them opening up their services to user-uploaded content a la SoundCloud. I’m ready to be surprised, but I do think those predictions are off the mark. The Verge gives a clue to where this might be headed for the two big streamers:
DJ mixes have historically proved to be especially difficult for monetized distribution. “The average mix is 62 minutes long and has 22 different songs in it, and those 22 different songs are represented by over 100 different rights holders,” {Dubset CEO Stephen} White tells The Verge. Using Dubset’s technology, a 60-minute mix can be processed in just 15 minutes.
During that 60-minute mix, White says, MixSCAN will fingerprint every three seconds of audio. “We’re using a combination of audio fingerprinting technologies and fairly advanced algorithmic approaches to identify the underlying masters that are being used in a mix or a remix,” he says. Although MixBANK asks DJs themselves to identify the masters, White says this is just to help validate MixSCAN’s results.
Apple’s Beats 1 Radio regularly broadcasts sets by newsworthy artists and celebrities, but the Beats 1 platform still fails to make the news. These DJ events need exposure outside of the ephemeral original broadcast. Wouldn’t it be nice if the sets were recorded and archived, and then available to play on demand via Apple Music? I think that’s what’s happening here. A different sort of license is required to make these DJ sets available on demand, and every song (and, yes, unofficial remix) must be cleared for this type of usage. Theoretically, Dubset’s technology would not only clear the songs in the mix, but it would be able to do so in 15 minutes. A Beats 1 set could be available to stream on Apple Music within thirty minutes of its broadcast. Voilà. And I’d wager Spotify has similar ambitions.
Previously and Previously and Previously
